November 10, 2012

Blogger Kevin Drum of liberal Mother Jones is a sensible fellow, with (at least by the standards of us pundits) strong powers of logic and data analysis. He's like me in some ways: same age, same part of the country, similar career path (although he made a lot more money during the Tech Bubble and has no kids). So, I always like to check out his opinions.

I think this one should give Republican strategists pause. Remember, this is coming from the logical wing of the Democratic party:

Losing a couple of elections in a row to a radical socialist can apparently make your life flash before your eyes. Here is Sean Hannity on immigration:

We’ve got to get rid of the immigration issue altogether. It’s simple to me to fix it. I think you control the border first. You create a pathway for those people that are here. You don’t say you’ve got to go home. And that is a position that I’ve evolved on. Because, you know what, it’s got to be resolved. The majority of people here, if some people have criminal records you can send them home, but if people are here, law-abiding, participating for years, their kids are born here, you know, it’s first secure the border, pathway to citizenship, done, whatever little penalties you want to put in there, if you want, and it’s done.

... I know they don't want to hear this, and I know that a lot of Republicans are deeply invested in a belief that liberals, not conservatives, are the real racial scaremongers. And I also know that it's almost impossible to talk about this because even the slightest suggestion of racial hostility is instantly toxic.

But as Bernie Goldberg admitted earlier this year, "There is a strain of bigotry — and that's the word I want to use — running through conservative America....That has to leave the conservative movement....I am sick of it." He's right. Lightening up on immigration won't be enough. Like it or not, conservatives are going to need a much more thorough housecleaning if they want to survive in an increasingly diverse future. No more gratuitous ethnic mockery. No more pretense that reverse racism is the real racism. No more suggestions that minorities just want a handout. No more screeching about the incipient threat of Sharia law. No more saturation coverage of the pathetic New Black Panthers. No more complaining that blacks get to use the N word but whites don't. No more summers of hate on Fox News. No more tolerance for Dinesh D'Souza and his "roots of Obama's rage" schtick; or for Glenn Beck saying Obama has a "deep-seated hatred of white people"; or for Rush Limbaugh claiming that "Obama's entire economic program is reparations." No more jeering at the mere concept of "diversity." And no more too-clever-by-half attempts to say all this stuff without really saying it, and then pretending to be shocked when you're called on it.

Got that?

Immigration isn't some technical issue like tax rates where the two sides can reach a compromise. It's a test of morals. Amnesty won't be just a practical tool for Democrats to solidify their majority; it will also be a symbolic milestone permanently delegitimizing any and all skepticism about the Democratic-run government electing a new people to elect a Democratic-run government.

And the only way the Republicans can pass this test is ... well, seriously, they can never pass it. There will always be some Republican out there who says something suggesting that he is not a goodthinker when it comes to immigration and diversity. And, like that guy in Missouri with his musings on abortion, you will never hear the end of it.

Drum sounds a bit like Caplan here. He's not making policy arguments about how we might address the best interests of the country - he's talking like a priest or rabbi. He's giving a moral lecture.

It's been pointed out before that having jettisoned formal religion, the left has ended up merging their religious and political impulses into one. But it bears repeating - what Caplan, Drum etc really are is theocrats. The right are not just people with some different political ideas: they're heretics, blasphemers!

Okay, fine. I'll address the real elephant in the room: What about the Eastern European immigrants?

How do we impress it onto the both parties that neither of them will win an election ever again, from this point on until the issue is addressed? First the horrors of the cold war, back in the old world. And then, here in America, we had to endure the occasional jokes about the cold war, usually delivered through movies and TV shows which was especially hurtful because in our cultures we expect these media to be psychological safe places meant for fun and relaxation.

An iPad per snout would solve the problem temporarily, but we'll need some real gestures of good will and contrition soon thereafter. And do it with concrete stuff, please; none of that national holiday/heritage month crap.

I keep seeing people on tv ENTHUSIASTICALLY mentioning the shrinking white population in America. And white people are sitting there smiling and looking with approval.

It happened a couple of minutes ago on SNL, the black guy was doing an impression of Obama, a damn good one at that, and the crowd cheered when he mentioned the shrinking white population and that his voter base was growing every second.

It's been pointed out before that having jettisoned formal religion, the left has ended up merging their religious and political impulses into one. But it bears repeating - what Caplan, Drum etc really are is theocrats. The right are not just people with some different political ideas: they're heretics, blasphemers!

Everyone's a heretic and blasphemer to the other side, now that left-right politics has become a holy war.

So, the only way for us to survive is to roll over and die. I don't see the logic in that.

To borrow academic jargon, we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift. Diversity is expensive. Trying to remove racial disparities costs a fortune and we are broke. None of this silliness can be paid for any more - silly academic pifflings, silly welfare programmes, silly power generation schemes using windmills, silly investments by silly bankers. Liberals are clever sillies!

Being silly doesn't make you nice. Some liberals do indeed get a homoerotic thrill from being whipped by a black guy, but the majority of them are savage about defending their interests. If those interests are seriously threatened, expect serious badness. I work in a university, I know what they're like.

If the economy tanks, and I think it will(all that debt), everything changes. The West will see real poverty for the first time in living memory. Liberals (including bankers) live off a state that has now run out of credit.

The frontiers of Western nations will be called into question. Life is going to get interesting. I no longer believe it is possible to make reliable medium-term predictions. I am not American and I do not live in America. If Southern Texas has Mexican living standards, is there any reason for its Spanish-speaking inhabitants to stay American? Will they secede? Would someone who lives there tell me what they think?

Uh, Steve, did you read his "or else"? Or else conservatives won't "survive in an increasingly diverse future." In other words, it's just the usual lecture about "you better do this for your own good, Sonny." It has zero political implications.

"The temptation for the party’s elites will be to fasten on the demographic explanation, because playing identity politics seems far less painful than overhauling he Republican economic message... What the party really needs, much more than a better identity-politics pitch, is an economic message that would appeal across demographic lines — reaching both downscale white voters turned off by Romney’s Bain Capital background and upwardly mobile Latino voters who don’t relate to the current G.O.P. fixation on upper-bracket tax cuts."http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-gops-demographic-excuse.html

Good grief, why?! Your ... naivete flabbergasts me. Drum's piece is just a pathetic regurgitation of the conventional wisdom, like some laughably earnest editorial you'd expect to see in a high school newspaper.

And check out the comments to see that Drum is not a lone loon.

Got that?

Err, no. So explain to me again why you don't want to be, or cannot be, a White Nationalist.

Everything is so much easier when you are.

These people would throw the demographic heritage of America as a majority white nation on the trash heap as if it had no value, as if it was not worth preserving, and they'd do that without so much as a second thought, and despite the obvious: the whole world is one big fact that shows how idiotic and wrong that view is.

"Uh, Steve, did you read his "or else"? Or else conservatives won't "survive in an increasingly diverse future." In other words, it's just the usual lecture about "you better do this for your own good, Sonny." It has zero political implications."

The same brilliant oracles told dissident conservatives in 2002 that the GOP would die if we opposed the Iraq War, because we needed Jewish votes and money in Florida. It was a scam then; it's a scam now.

As I said in previous post, White voters with the income and ideological profile of Hispanics are overwhelmingly Democratic now. Why would actual Latino voters be any different? Even if immigration issues never came up in public discourse, fiscal policy alone would put Hispanic voters pretty much right where they are today. Immigration has little to do with Latino voter preferences.

Southern TX does not have Mexican living standards. Their [federal tax-subsidized] living standards are much higher. Granted, being rich in Mexico, if you don't get shot, is pretty swell. But for your average non-jefe TX is a better deal, except for meds, and you can always go back across the river to buy those. TX has better infrastructure, which is the unacknowledged basis of civilized life.

The differences between TX and northern Mexico, in terms of infrastucture and everything that flows from it, is pretty glaring.

I keep seeing people on tv ENTHUSIASTICALLY mentioning the shrinking white population in America. And white people are sitting there smiling and looking with approval.

Liberal whites think that all their noble efforts to separate themselves from proles in the eyes of the elit--er, I mean, fight for the rights of poor oppressed marginalized disenfranchized browns--will be rewarded: they'll get at seat at the elites' table, their daughter will be spared from rape when the would-be perpetrator intuits that her dad has an Obama bumper sticker on his Lexus SUV, etc.

The prosaic truth, however, is that as demographics become increasingly, ah, diverse, the elites will retreat to their gated communities, while the diverse Americans become increasingly brazen in their undiscriminating (that's good, right?) maltreatment of--you guessed it--whites.

But don't worry. The elites, though physically cloistered, will still sacrifice themselves where it really counts: they will preach the gospel of benevolent tolerance and tolerant benevolence through the most effectual avenues (going door-to-door just doesn't have the same efficiency, you understand) available: television, movies, the internet--that is, any medium where the evangelization of White Guilt can be received by the greatest number, who in recognizing their moral failings might save their civilizat--er, I mean, be granted eternal li--no that's not it--um, you know, like, be socially accepted.

All well and good, except for one thing I can't quite figure out (I really ought to watch more TV): when all one's middle-class white peers are gone, when the elite Scots-Iri--er, whites live in fortified compounds, who's left to impress?

The glue that holds the left together is their hated and resentment of white people. Ultimately, they are united by what they are against not by what they are for. By everyone's reckoning, they are far more "diverse" than the right. In fact, it is supposedly their source of pride although sometimes I wonder. To string together such a wide coalition, they have to constantly resort to their lowest common denominator, demagoguery, because demonizing their opponents is their only safe ground. It has been said that the most radical thing gays can do is come out of the closet. It is true for whites as well. I have noticed that most people cringe when I call myself white in public, which is why I do it every chance I get.

We know what Drum's attempting, because we know what the Left has always feverishly been attempting: CONTROL THE DISCOURSE!

Yes, DaveinHackensack, we live now under the surveillance of self-appointed Media-Pravda Language Police and SPLC Gestapo goons who form the Socialist Nanny State's volunteer militia of SpinItMen. These same dark forces also penetrated every Human Resources Department: one word can now get you fired, and one word can also desroy your entire career - suck away everything you'd ever studied and toiled to accomplish to better yourself and provide for your own.

Unless you prate nowadays as if you were reciting from the script over at 'Sesame Street,' you can have your livelihood, your means of making your way in the world, shorn from you like hair shorn from a freshly "resettled" Auschwitz inmate. In short, the Left - in Government, in Media-Pravda, in academia, and in Corporate Power - has now the power to force anyone it chooses to finger to wear the new yellow star.

"So, the only way for us to survive is to roll over and die. I don't see the logic in that".

That's exactly the impression I'm getting. There is NOTHING tactically in it for the republicans or the mainstream conservatives to support amnesty other than hastening their marginalization with a ton of new democratic voters on the rolls mainlining every government handout available to them (and they aren't doing to shabby in that department right now).

I have another opinion about all this "we're ready to make a deal" talk. The rank and file republicans and blue dogs have been getting pressure from their wealthy backers and the establishment of both parties for over a decade to push through another amnesty, but they could not do it because the voters blew a gasket and sharpened their pitchforks (many of whom were also White democrat voters). The new demographics shift is the ruse they've been saving to push it through against the will of the people. We'll see if Bachmann and company have more balls (and votes) than Boehner and his cronies this time around.

If Caplan is one of the more "reasonable" voices from the left on the issue, this country is more far gone than I suspected. He is just as sanctimonious and unwilling to acknowledge the legitimate grievances and downsides an illegal invasion of this magnitude has on the White majority as any MSNBC mouthpiece. He's just another lecturing anti-fascist.

A while ago I posted on another thread that nativists were beaten and that amnesty was going to happen. Reading this, the sheer arrogance of it, has convinced me there is hope yet. Liberals in America are like Tories in England. O so arrogant. There arrogance has a habit of tripping them up. I might just do so this time.

Kevin Drum has Honkeyphobia, or an inability to extrapolate. The dis-eased person infected with Honkeyphobia cannot see the day coming when Whites are a true 40% minority, sitting on 70% of the country's wealth and redistribution becomes more of an outright 'grab-the-TV' than simply disallowing certain tax deductions and taxing incomes over 250K.Honkeyphobiacs who are white usually have a slightly smug smile on their face and they like to look in the mirror a lot and primly mutter themselves 'yes I am good, a climber of Mount Moral High Ground where the view is breathtakingly dark'

What I get from that is that he's decided the Republicans must now energetically imitate the UK's Conservatives ("It should be possible for the party to reform and streamline government while also addressing middle-class anxieties about [x]"). So, start competing with the voters/consumers over who can more efficiently deliver government services & largesse to them. I guess I can understand it from Douthat's vantage, but is there any point in me supporting such a party? Along with the rest of the population who don't live in or get their weekly checks from D.C.

"And the only way the Republicans can pass this test is ... well, seriously, they can never pass it. There will always be some Republican out there who says something suggesting that he is not a goodthinker when it comes to immigration and diversity. And, like that guy in Missouri with his musings on abortion, you will never hear the end of it."

exactly

this point needs to be beaten into the heads of any conservative talking head who suggests capitulation on X issue automatically = votes from Latinos/the Youth (base voters? Who needs 'em, they're old dying white people right?) It's idiotic.

the democrats don't have an economic message. what was obama's platform in 2012?

sorry, this is about demographics, not economics, or as someone remarked on vdare, the republican's modern "economism" platform.

at the national level, and increasingly at the state level, democrat "economics", if you can even call their sheer idiocy on the topic economics, is essentially "steer this baby directly at the iceberg".

"Tories in England have become much better at this, leaving "populist conservatives" to the British National Party."

The Tories scraped into power at the last election, promising, among other things, a reduction of "net" legal immigration (i.e. difference between in and out, so zero immigration could still mean mass immigration, as many young Brits with a degree or trade head for Canada, Oz or NZ) from around 3-400,000 a year to "tens of thousands".

It's still around 350,000. They've become "much better" in that they're not doing anything serious about the replacement of the English. Ethnic minorities are now about 30% of births.

Working incomes, not by coincidence, are pretty static, unemployment's high and the standard of living is falling as inflation remains much higher than wage increases. Meanwhile, top execs rewards increased by 26% last year.

Minorities have bought into the Democratic brand name and that is that.

Even if the Republican party really had a candidate who was perfect on every issue....All the Dems need to do is remind their minority voters "This is the party of white people"

It's over.

We need to get the Republican party on the right page So That Whites Can Get on the right page...so in case of secession or war, the next time around we don't make stupid mistakes. But it won't matter jack for the minorities.

They half way there already.All it will take is just one further push, and they will win. Permanently.

The analogy is with 'women's rights' and 'feminism'. Women have a degree of power and control in western societies that would have been absolutely unthinkable to any observer from any age older than, say, 200 years ago (to be on the safe side). To question this degree of power and control not only results in ostracism and hatred (I can almost already read the nasty replies to this comment), but more importantly, it's unthinkable, no one would even dare (or think) of doing it, rather like having his Holiness the Pope doffing his frock in public and waving the pontifical willy around - it will just not happen.

The game is over for White conservatives as far as getting back to the White House. This marginalization will most likely lead to radicalization. So, far from "moderating", I would expect a dramatic reappraisal of their relationship to the "United States" and it's institutions.

I really have to wonder why any White guy from the South would volunteer for the military, unless he was getting a sweet deal for himself. The country he is defending pretty much hates him.

I think he, like the Republican Party (and the Democratic Party) misunderstands what is going on.

Want to win with a "conservative" message?

Dust off the old Huey Long playbook.

A populist party that wants to curtail immigration is the natural party of the United States.

It would have to adopt the attitudes of both major parties towards religion prior to 1980 though, neither advancing or opposing the beliefs of any particular religion.

You know, separation of church and state.

Times have changed. If our hypothetical party embraced marijuana legalization, and didn't give a shit about abortion and gay marriage it is going to grow in a hurry.

It may not be what anyone considers conservative at this point in time.

But I'll tell you this: There aren't too many people that buy these Wall Street types as "job creators." In the South at least they are hated IMO as much as a UC Berkeley type that spells "women" as "womyn."

You guys run your flippin' mouths about problems, but apparently never want to analyze the true root of the problem or how to address it.

Tell me something. We've all seen the talking heads, the politicians, the Wall Streeters on TV.

How smart do they really come across as to you?

Yet most of them have a lot of money? Why is that? And would anyone give a shit what someone in San Francisco or LA thought about anything if they didn't have a lot of money?

I'll tell you what that reason is. These people are at the center of the system that runs the US, and can use the government to enhance their bottom line in many ways.

What you need to do is to shift that center. Attack the source of their power.

LOTS of way you can do that. Here is one way to start: Get off the usual Republican reflexive dismissal of the idea, and adopt state banks like North Dakota has. As much as possible reduce dependence and funneling money to the financial establishment.

They are not your friends. You can find all sorts of things written on this bank if you google. But it never seems to happen anywhere else.

Another idea: Hollywood liberals got you down? Work with others to get a viable alternative going. There is nothing special about Hollywood or the entertainment industry. Youtube, filesharing, South American soaps with Hot-Hot-Hot actresses are all ways to strike a blow.

The absolute numbers of the people you mutter about so strongly are not large. But you seem eager to follow the lead of similar types in "your party."

And you never seem to want to do anything to pull their teeth.

Without money, these types aren't anything. As a matter of fact they are less than most.

Unfortunately for Hispanic outreach, it's not just or even primarily GOP immigration policy that Hispanics reject. It's their entire governing philosophy. Hispanics are just a very liberal group. Here's the link.

Why do you say you listen to this guy again? If he's the facts and logic guy for democrats, then they've gotten wayyyy off the road of sanity and due for a massive correction from reality any day now.

Sure whites are the racists. It happens every day- its damned white men going around raping black women, beating defenseless black guys in the streets. Sure 'reverse racism' is not the real racism going on today- its blacks and Hispanics who are being held back by all those evil whites on the street and in the MSM spewing genocidal hatred and gloating over the declining numbers of blacks and Hispanics, its blacks and Hispanics being shoved aside for less qualified whites when it comes time for spots in college, fellowships, job opportunities, federal funding for start-ups and existing companies; its minorities who are being kicked down by the MSM while they praise whites for fictitious nonsense every day.

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Some people might think a sterile person without children doesn't really have a dog in the future, and just writes about what can make him money without caring about what happens to the next generation. But you can prove them wrong. You know, you're a writer, and an online journalist at that, so it really doesn't matter where you live. I'm sure you're not lying to us, so why not demonstrate the truth to all the world and move to somewhere a little more colorful- you live in Irvine now, and really whites and Asians are all that it's got going on. Boring. And surrounded by all those evil white hatemongers who are the real racists. Why not prove your beliefs and move to somewhere more colorful, like Detroit? or Baltimore? Some cheap property in both places if you go to the right neighborhoods, the most vibrant ones. I've read you can get a house for $10k (or less!) in some areas of Detroit! What a bargain! And what a way to show your ideas in practice and contribute help out the beleaguered black community. I know, I know, its the terrible climate there. Tell you what, there are some richly diverse areas right there in Mediterranean climate CA where you can move to. Watts has a terrific stew of diversity. And those delightful Watts towers are sure to be a treasure to see every day. Perhaps you can build your own tribute to the community in your back yard every day while you're there. Or maybe Northern Cali is more your thing- why not take a hop, skip and a jump away to a vibrant neighborhood in Oakland? You're sure to find some delightful neighbors there, much more than in your boring, evil white suburb in Irvine. Seriously, Kevin, give it a whirl. I believe you. We just need to convince everyone else.

The Tories in England have become much better at this, leaving "populist conservatives" to the British National Party.

Unfortunately for the Tories' electoral prospects, the country now has a real alternative populist conservative party in the shape of the UK Independence Party which has none of the readily exploitable & unsavoury Nazi connections and association with (middle class voter terrifying) street violence of BNP.

I think much worse than any demographic disadvantage (probably overstated) as many Hispanics will likely identify as white (which will ALWAYS be the privileged ethnic category in the US), is the quick secularization of the US (Church attendance may be as low as 20%) in the US. This Europeanization of values is ultimately what may force the Republicans into change.

"There is a strain of bigotry — and that's the word I want to use — running through conservative America....That has to leave the conservative movement....I am sick of it."

To a degree, true. I admire John Derbyshire, and I was upset when NRO fired him, but they were right to do so. The right catches far too much flack for being angry racists. Derb is too smart and has too many good insights to go down the path of the "angry white racist." We have a policy war to win, esp. on immigration, and we can't win if our best shots are making us sound like it's all about racism.

Also, I am sick of conservative whites fleeing out of fear when various parts of town start to diversify. I have friends who live in such places, and they don't experience many problems from their Hispanic neighbors (though granted, this isn't Compton or wherever). I'm not going to suffer a 90 minute commute just to live away from a bunch of Hispanics. Reinvest in these neigborhoods, drive up the property values, and let the Hispanics have the 90 minute commutes.

"No more gratuitous ethnic mockery."

What the hell is he talking about? On mainstream conservative sites ethnic mockery is nonexistent.

"No more pretense that reverse racism is the real racism."

But it is real racism. Not the only racism, but racism nonetheless. Dems are oppressing one group of people that does better for the purposes of helping another. Of course Dems, conveniently, don't want to subject Jews to the principle of "equality," alhtough it would follow their logic perfectly, and if Republicans suggested it we know who would be called the racists.

"No more suggestions that minorities just want a handout."

But...they do. At least a lot of them do, and it's willful ignorance to pretend otherwise. Racism, conformity, and handouts are the primary reasons a very large fraction of blacks and Hispanics vote for the Democrats.

"No more saturation coverage of the pathetic New Black Panthers."

Really? Why not, because it reminds people there are racists on the Left? If it had been white Klansmen in, say, Corinth, Mississippi would the Left be complaining? Yep.

For the record, I'm very seriously considering standing in front of a polling place in 2014 in Klan robes, mostly to draw attention to the fact that the MSM would spend a lot more time covering me than it did the Panthers, and that Eric Holder would actually prosecute me. And I won't even carry a nightstick. My funeral will be amazing.

"No more complaining that blacks get to use the N word but whites don't."

Really? How often does this happen? Yes, the hallowed pages of NRO are just filled daily with articles bitching that whites don't get to use the N word. Here's where you know Drum is just reaching for something, anything, to prove that all conservatives are racists.

A nation has the right to ensure cultural continuity from one generation to the next. It has the right to protect its accumulated wealth for its posterity, and not someone else's. That means we have the right to put reasonable limits on immigration, or even have no immigration at all. This country has gone from over 85% white in 1965 to 68% white today where over half of all children born are non-white, and the Left is goddamned happy about it, proclaiming that it "has won." But that makes us the racists...

"Everyone's a heretic and blasphemer to the other side, now that left-right politics has become a holy war."

I notice this increasingly, too: people who defriend others simply for not voting for the same guy (mostly from the Left). It's the religion. It's their holy war. These are the people who, if they were Muslims in Nigeria, would be slaughtering the Christians; or slaughtering the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's Day. It comes from the same, deap-seated impulse to impose conformity on us all, to view any alternate forms of belief as evil.

Bottom line is: if there is a solution to the GOP's race problem, open borders isn't it. We need to slow the inflow of immigrants, and for far more reasons than the fact that the newcomers aren't white.

White conservatives need to focus less on politics and elections and more on culture - for our own good, and for the purpose of affecting the larger society around us. This is our Babylonian Captivity - a time where we strengthen our culture, make it smarter, more resilient, more portable.

Since the election of George W. Bush the GOP has undeniably, unmistakably been the party of the rich. Bush's first - and last - "conservative" act was to lower taxes on rich people. Then he proceeded to betray paleoconservatives by invading Iraq and ignoring our immigration laws.

A very large share of the American public wants to get by without government assistance. The natural conservative base still exists. Over the last 4 years the median family income declined from $54,000 to $50,000. When over a hundred million Americans are just scraping by or actually falling behind they will not vote for a party that mostly wants to preserve the wealth of the rich.

What did Mitt Romney run on? Keeping the Bush tax cuts (incl. for the rich), cutting business taxes, eliminating the estate tax, and increasing skilled immigration.

Look at John Boehner, the Chamber of Commerce lobbyis...er, the Speaker of the House. He has indicated that he is willing to compromise with the president on amnesty, but that hill named "Bush's Tax Cuts for the Rich"? He will die on it.

The GOP needs to become the party of the middle class. Until it does it will be the minority party. That could be for a very long time to come.

The GOP's Hispanic problem goes back decades, to at least LBJ, to the time when Republicans were voting for civil rights in larger percentages than Democrats. IIRC, 90% of Hispanics voted for LBJ in '64. It is about economics and government handouts, not immigration or anything else.

It is patently absurd to assume we can win them by supporting amnesty, and for so many other reasons it would be stupid to even try.

All what white guys in what 47%? The Democrats already get a minority of the white vote. Sometimes in the next twenty years whites voters will make up less than half of those who vote Democratic. (They already do this in several states - I'm referring to the national totals here)

I must have missed the "saturation coverage" of the New Black Panthers. But whenever I watch any television, I learn that one of the gravest threats facing America is "white supremacists". I caught an episode of NCIS the other day in which some "white supremacists" were trying to steal ground-to-air missiles. If there's a group of people who get media scare-mongering far in excess of anything they have ever done, are doing, or will do, it has to be "white supremacists".

What goes little noticed in the usual dustups over these issues is how the white working class has been divided and conquered by the two parties working in effect -- if not in intent -- toward disempowering them.

While it is certainly not a popular view here, the natural cause for the white working class is the welfare state, with programs like Social Security, Medicare, and some form of nationalized health care. Whereever in the industrialized world one finds nations which are dominantly uniform in their ethnicity, that is what they choose for themselves.

Now of course the right in the US wants to dismantle that welfare state, and imagines that productive members of society would be better off without these social programs. But those programs really do work in other countries to provide insurance for the vicissitudes of a purely market based economy. People of relatively limited means appreciate the importance of such insurance, if ideologues do not. Again, that's why in the countries I've specified these voters (almost all of them genuinely productive workers) have plunked down for such programs. It's only by an ideologue's three bank shot (e.g., trickle down prosperity) that a purely market based economy might seem equally or more secure than a welfare state. Most voters don't put much credit in three bank shots, and, I think, they are right not to do so.

On the other hand, immigration and diversity offer the white working class essentially nothing positive, and what certainly appears to be negatives. A job lost to Affirmative Actions can hardly seem to be in the direct interests of someone in the white class. Likewise, immigrants would surely at least appear to be taking up some of a scarce quantity, jobs, and would also seem to be driving down wages. What in this might a member of the white working class possibly find in his own best interest?

The perversity of American politics, though, separates these two goals, unified though they be by the economic interests of the white working class, into two parties.

Democrats will never allow that immigration or diversity might be curtailed, though they certainly support (or claim to) the programs the white working class seeks. And Republicans seek to tear down those programs, even if they are willing to embrace (within the narrow confines of allowed discourse) constraints on immigration and diversity.

As a consequence, the white working class has simply no hope of getting what it wants. They have, again, been divided and conquered. Republicans get some of them, and Democrats the others, depending on which of the two goals can be spun as more important on a given occasion to a given voter.

I've seen lefties claim (in the comments section of NRO, no less) that opposition to amnesty for illegals and open borders constitutes the waging of a "race war" by the right!

Drum's comments are of a piece with that. "Give us exactly what we want or we will call you racists even more often than we currently do!"

Of course this is the same group of people who convinced themselves that the failure to give "free" contraceptives to women constitutes the waging of a "war on women". So hysterically overwrought hyperbole seems to be their default mindset.

Let us argue that white/Jewish/gay liberals are correct. White conservatives are neo-Nazi, 'racist', subhuman, lowlife, neanderthal, and disgusting scumbags. Suppose there is a button that can rid the world of evil white conservative mofo scumbags. So, Kevin Drum pushes the button. There are no more white conservatives in the US. They all went PUFF into the air!!

So, what's going to happen? US will be around 40% white liberal, 30% Hispanic, 25% black, and 5% other. As time passes, non-white numbers will swell while white liberals will becoming an ever shrinking pool, what with their low birth rates. Most of the privilege and wealth will be with white, Jewish, and gay liberals. Without the evil white conservative to scapegoat, how will white liberals solve the problems of crime, poverty, low IQ among blacks and browns, and etc? And without the evil white conservatives on whom to fixate their hate, won't blacks and browns fix their rage and hate on white/Jewish/gay liberal privilege?

Action movies need villains. Heroes are nothing without bad guys. Now that the Evil White Conservative Party has been defeated forever in the Political Action Movie, how will rich white/Jewish/gay liberals explain their vast powers and privileges to the growing mobs of browns and blacks? And the blue collar Democratic working class whose jobs have been outsourced by liberal globalist companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and etc?

Just look to Hellifornia. I suppose white liberals can pray that a whole lot of Asians will arrive and do the heavy lifting for the economy to pay taxes to take care of blacks and browns.

The whole point of the column - which as usual is of no interest Steve's brilliant commentators - is that the Libertarian/Moderate Republican "Dream" that if we help pass immigration reform, give up on social issues - in summary go LIBERAL on everything except fiscal issues - the National debate will then focus on the stuff they care about - Money.

But the left/Liberal has no intention of confining the debate to fiscal issues and if conservatives give up on these issues - The LEFT WONT.

The Cultural war isn't going to end until the Left achieves 100% TOTAL victory. Which is never.

While MSM was traditionally liberal, it lacked passion and 'red meat' stuff. Conservative Talk Radio offered red meat, and so conservatism was gaining among the unwashed masses. And conservatives bragged about how liberals were no good at Talk Radio.

But libs got the upperhand with Talk TV--Bill Maher, Stewart, Colbert, etc, and cable news became brazenly partisan, mostly on the side of liberals--, and they've been kicking conservative butt in winning over the unwashed moron vote.

Memo to Kevin: Eff off. I'll feel what I feel and I'll say what I want to say until they cart me off.

Steve:

Lost in all the Obama-mania is the fact that gay rights won big. You always like to say that gay rights is 0 fer 32, but they went 4 fer 4 Tuesday night. What do you make of that?

This article in TNR wrapping it up contains a sinister paragraph, which I cut and pasted in full, because it is so creepy:

"Yet marriage isn’t just a legal right—it’s also a social institution. It is one thing for the state to allow you to marry, and quite another for your parents to show up at your wedding and be happy for you. Both are significant. The educational efforts that have been chipping away at political opposition need to expand so that they address the ongoing cultural opposition. Simply dismissing such opposition as “on the wrong side of history” will do little to help the kids who continue to hear it from their parents, teachers, and pastors. To put it simply, we shouldn’t let the recent political momentum obscure the fact that vast portions of the country still believe—and teach their children—that same-sex love is inferior, sick, perverted, or worse."

All well and good, except for one thing I can't quite figure out (I really ought to watch more TV): when all one's middle-class white peers are gone, when the elite Scots-Iri--er, whites live in fortified compounds, who's left to impress?

This thing gets nastier than you can even imagine. In the new South Africa formerly "racist" whites are literally groveling before their new masters in order not to be raped and shot. But then they mostly do get raped and shot anyway. The main motive of the criminals seems to be the joy they get in humiliating their former overlords. When you read accounts of Boer murders it becomes very sad.This is where the enthusiasm of the democratic crowd comes from. The whites amongst them either have problems with their own identity, or hope to come off with a scratch in the new world where whites are a minority. White Americans are on a long downward spiral and the end is basically going to be as nasty as it is for whites in formerly Rhodesia and the new South Africa. And the non-white Democrats know this, which is why they are so triumphant.

Lightening up on immigration won't be enough. Like it or not, conservatives are going to need a much more thorough housecleaning if they want to survive in an increasingly diverse future. No more gratuitous ethnic mockery. No more pretense that reverse racism is the real racism. No more suggestions that minorities just want a handout. No more screeching about the incipient threat of Sharia law. No more saturation coverage of the pathetic New Black Panthers. No more complaining that blacks get to use the N word but whites don't. No more summers of hate on Fox News. No more tolerance for Dinesh D'Souza and his "roots of Obama's rage" schtick; or for Glenn Beck saying Obama has a "deep-seated hatred of white people"; or for Rush Limbaugh claiming that "Obama's entire economic program is reparations." No more jeering at the mere concept of "diversity." And no more too-clever-by-half attempts to say all this stuff without really saying it, and then pretending to be shocked when you're called on it.

This is one way that liberals control the public debate. They leave themselves eternally free to argue that group x needs more but use political correctness to stifle their opponents from pointing out that group x gets more. The need never stops!

Unfortunately for likes of Drum, I suspect they'll find their own interests as white liberals increasingly marginalized in a party that is ever darker.

Any acknowledgement of black on white crime is unacceptable. Trayvon Martin on the other hand was given more media coverage than Hurricane Sandy and Benghazi combined. George Zimmerman a mestizo is still referred to as white though any person with eyes can see he's not.

Times have changed. If our hypothetical party embraced marijuana legalization, and didn't give a shit about abortion and gay marriage it is going to grow in a hurry. --sunbeam

If Sunbeam/JustAClown/PresterJohn seriously thinks equating the foundational institution of all civilizations-- and almost all pre-civilizations-- to two guys buggering for jollies is the way to restore sanity to politics, he is quite mistaken. Indeed, he's been staring at that sunbeam for too long.

Any society that quashes its next generation with curettes, while allowing a pair of fairies to replace it with a purchased "egg donation", really is unworthy of saving, and should be let alone to die.

Two U.S. senators launched a fresh move to put together a bipartisan immigration reform plan on Sunday, restarting talks on a proposal that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country.

Since President Barack Obama was re-elected last week with overwhelming support from Hispanic voters, many Republicans have expressed a new willingness to work with Democrats to pass immigration reform after years of legislative inaction.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said he and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham have agreed to resume talks on immigration reform that broke off two years ago.

"And I think we have a darned good chance using this blueprint to get something done this year. The Republican Party has learned that being ... anti-immigrant doesn't work for them politically. And they know it," Schumer said.

Obama in 2010 called the proposal backed by Graham and Schumer a "promising framework," but it made no headway.

There are an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, most of them Hispanics.

Winston Churchill had a similar problem. He and his party hated the Communists and they also hated the Nazis.

His solution was to hate them in priority order He - and we - banded together with the Uncle Joe Stalin to knock off Hitler.

Similarly we should accept the Hispanics as allies against the blacks.

The blacks are more dangerous and troublesome than the poor Mexicans who have sneeked in. You, Steve, living in LA are particularly sensitive to Hispanics degrading your city. But I live in Oakland.

The Mexicans and Mayans I hire for my yard work are openly contemptuous of local blacks. When was a white man in America last comfortable in ridiculing black brain power? It seems to me we need these visitors from the south. They enjoy certain freedoms we lack.

The people applauding the elimination of the White majority in the US at SNL are ... WOMEN!

The HBD explanation is that women go with winners, genetically, because they're far too valuable. Having a kid or several with the conqueror continues THEIR DNA which is much better than having it extinguished in dumb loyalty to husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, etc.

Just like that Broadwell woman, there's a more Alpha conquering male around? Sleep with him! The Daily Mail a while back had a link to a study about Vichy France. Nearly every woman over 16 and under 40 was romantically involved with the German occupiers. Enthusiastically. Married women, daughters, it did not matter.

White guys are on the nerdy and trusting side, and are vulnerable to higher-T, lower IQ guys with more aggression and less intelligence (which is associated with higher T levels, higher IQs are repulsive to women like baseball stats and star trek conventions). Add in AA and the devaluing of providership, and yes women (and those White Knights seeking to curry favor) love the idea of a non-White majority.

I believe Steve wrote a review of a South African novel with that theme. White farmer's daughter sleeps with an African thug as third/fourth wife, semi-slave, that's the way things work.

Whichever man or group of men is more socially dominant and the social "winner" will have women following them. Period. That's Obama's advantage with White women. He's BLACK. Thus the socially approved, dynamic, not-nerdy, not "White guy" (which is an insult today) winner. Even more than Clinton.

A)Bernie MacGoldberg is upset at the "raycizzum" he sees on the right. Hasnt he been Scotch-Irish all along and basically pretended to be a Con to help form the Narrative? Feck His Scotch-Irish haggis-&-cream-cheese-eating ass!!!While I'm at it,these "minority" Reublicans who are so cooed over,they seem to form a Confederacy of Dunces,what with that bemedaled effluent Colin Powell,the bird-brained never-heard-of-Al Queda Condi,the brainless Alberto Gonzales,whom Republicans cheered with peacockian joy when elevated to the post of AG(Tho in comparison to the current worthy fellow,he was God-like) and the latest hero,the high school debater Marco Rubio.We need him-to not only NOT gain the "latino" vote but cause millions more whites---which is why Mittens lost--to just throw up their hands and give up. Fidel has ruled over Cuba for a million years,and has been,by his own admission,an abject failure,yet he is beloved by his Pipple. Why? Cuz he got rid of the Cubanos like Rubio! B)As Rush--and yes I am back listening to him-pointed out,when Reagan pushed thru amnesty his share of the latino vote fell. The latinos with higher IQ's and more white blood became a smaller percentage of the whole,and the more black & Amerindian became greater. And of course the immutable law was obeyed:They voted Democratic. If amnesty goes thru now... C) Why has that,er,delicate Lindsey Graham,who lusts for the brown vote so deeply,why hasnt he addresed the problem of the Republicans getting ZERO of the blacketty blacks?Zero,Jerry!

Don't agree with all of it, but good piece by John Ellis (h/t: Mickey Kaus): 14 lessons from 2012. See #2: Making Romney radioactive and having working class white voters stay home was Team Obama's game plan. They must have been encouraged before the election reading some of the comments on this blog (they must have loved TAC's take on the election too). Mission accomplished, Team Obama. Other good stuff in that piece too.

Also, a couple of columns in this weekend's FT worth reading related to immigration and the election. Chris Caldwell:

This week’s election complicated matters. It made evident an ethnicisation of the US party system. If Latinos and Asians are going to vote 75 per cent Democratic, then 9m of those 12m would-be citizens probably will too. That makes Republicans less comfortable with amnesty; it will also turn some Democrats against enforcement, lest they kill the goose that lays the golden political egg.

Also worth reading, John Dizard on the implications of the fiscal cliff.

You can read those FT articles at no charge by registering at their site (you get 10 free reads a month, I think).

"Since the election of George W. Bush the GOP has undeniably, unmistakably been the party of the rich. Bush's first - and last - "conservative" act was to lower taxes on rich people."

Bush lowered taxes on everybody and made the tax system more progressive. Which is why Obama and the Democrats don't want all of Bush's tax cuts to expire, just the ones that apply to the top 2% of income earners.

If Republicans were smart, they would stop trying to defend that slice of the Bush tax cuts and say to hell with all of them. Let them all expire. Democrats still praise Clinton and the economy he had, so what's wrong with living with Clinton tax rates temporarily until there's a comprehensive longterm budget deal? If that deal looks anything like Bowles-Simpson, it will include a lower top rate and a flatter structure anyway, which Republicans should be happy with.

"Similarly we should accept the Hispanics as allies against the blacks."

Neither is an option at the moment, as neither most blacks nor most Hispanics want anything to do with Republicans. An alliance between blacks and Republicans against unchecked immigration would make more sense from a logical standpoint, but I don't think there's anything Republicans can do to woo blacks right now. If blacks return to the Republican fold eventually, it will more likely be after they feel marginalized by a Hispanic majority. But that may be a while.

"Part of what sets the area apart is the strain between immigrant parents and their Americanizing children, who wince at their accents and dirty jobs. Langley Park is an immigrant neighborhood where it is an insult to be called an immigrant. Teenagers call the rough-looking newcomers “hinchos,” or “hicks.”

“Hinchos try to look black, but they’re not as good at it as we are,” said Jesselyn’s 14-year-old brother, Victor Jr.

Weak parental authority abets strong gangs. The dominant force in many young lives is Mara Salvatrucha-13, or MS-13, which is known for its violence and international reach. But there are scores of lesser cliques — Street Thug Criminals, Sexy but Stupid — that strive to live up to their name.

A very large share of the American public wants to get by without government assistance. The natural conservative base still exists. Over the last 4 years the median family income declined from $54,000 to $50,000.

And you supported that by supporting Obama. You have an amazing inability to see the connection between your own actions and what happens in the real world. Which means that even though you think you're a conservative, you're a lefty.

"And you supported that by supporting Obama. You have an amazing inability to see the connection between your own actions and what happens in the real world. Which means that even though you think you're a conservative, you're a lefty."

Many French people as well as allied troops were sickened by the treatment meted out to these women accused of collaboration horizontale with German soldiers. A large number of the victims were prostitutes who had simply plied their trade with Germans as well as Frenchmen, although in some areas it was accepted that their conduct was professional rather than political. Others were silly teenagers who had associated with German soldiers out of bravado or boredom. In a number of cases, female schoolteachers who, living alone, had German soldiers billeted on them, were falsely denounced for having been a "mattress for the boches". Women accused of having had an abortion were also assumed to have consorted with Germans.

Many victims were young mothers, whose husbands were in German prisoner-of-war camps. During the war, they often had no means of support, and their only hope of obtaining food for themselves and their children was to accept a liaison with a German soldier. As the German writer Ernst Jünger observed from the luxury of the Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris, "food is power".

Dirty Harriet said... It's a total culture war, like Weimar------------------

That's what the left demands. Tolerance is not enough, you have to approve of it too. Actually, that's not enough either, wild applause is now required. Given the opportunity, they'd rub your face in their shit and make you thank them for it.

Total war is exactly it. And the right is fighting under the strictures of the Geneva convention.

Interesting notes, but I wonder if they are quite as true as you think. I don't believe Southern women took up with Yankee invaders very much, despite the 20 year occupation.

Beyond that, while women do go for the winner, and unconsciously realize they are valuable no matter what, those rules really apply to very similar men ethnically.

If White women have babies with Black or Asian men, they have FAR LESS relatedness to their own children than a White women mating with a White man.

You may be right that White women are willing to go with any winner, but in the case of Blacks, Browns and Asians, this may be a case of their instincts NOT being aligned with their actual genetic self-interest.

"Since the election of George W. Bush the GOP has undeniably, unmistakably been the party of the rich. Bush's first - and last - "conservative" act was to lower taxes on rich people."

he lowered taxes on everybody, and actually mailed people a stimulus check. imagine the obamaconomy being so good that they could mail everybody a check. what a tool of the rich GW bush was, mailing poor people free money.

obama the socialist marxist only wants to raise taxes on the major producers. he talks about it constantly. it's one of the few things which he does have a plan about, something he clearly wants to do. wealth transfer is a big deal for him. he wants it bad.

in a time when everybody should have skin in the game, and an honest tax increase would raise federal income tax rates on everybody, he hates that idea. he wants tens of millions of people never paying taxes again and freeloading forever.

Nearly every woman over 16 and under 40 was romantically involved with the German occupiers. Enthusiastically. Married women, daughters, it did not matter.

Chicks that dated the Germans had their heads shaved after the war. From the photos I've seen, it was like a few girls. Had every woman been involved with a Kraut, all of France would have looked like Sinead O'Connor.

If amnesty goes through, I think this will be the last time I can ever vote for Republicans. I just can't be affiliated with a group this stupid, and lacking any sense of self preservation. I mean, it's not like we didn't try amnesty--when I was 13!! It didn't make the issue "go away", it just created 3 million more Dems, and 11 million more took their place in line. Even if we did everything this guy demands, they'd just move the goal post and still call us racist. It's insane.

'Immigration isn't some technical issue like tax rates where the two sides can reach a compromise. It's a test of morals. Amnesty won't be just a practical tool for Democrats to solidify their majority; it will also be a symbolic milestone permanently delegitimizing any and all skepticism about the Democratic-run government electing a new people to elect a Democratic-run government.'

" I don't believe Southern women took up with Yankee invaders very much, despite the 20 year occupation."

Sure they did, particularly after being grabbed by the hair and slapped a few times.

A little foreplay is always helpful.

Seriously though, Whiskey's out to lunch, as usual. The amount of admixture resulting from invasion is historically pretty low. It takes thousands of years of sustained invasion to really make an impact.

Chicks that dated the Germans had their heads shaved after the war. From the photos I've seen, it was like a few girls. Had every woman been involved with a Kraut, all of France would have looked like Sinead O'Connor.

That's a polite way of putting it. Every word from that nutjob is either a lie or delusional raving. I'm not sure why any self-respecting website would publish his BS. What next, 9/11 Truthers? They're no more disconnected from reality than Whiskey is.

"Seriously though, Whiskey's out to lunch, as usual. The amount of admixture resulting from invasion is historically pretty low. It takes thousands of years of sustained invasion to really make an impact."

Like in Mexico?

The reality is that populations have been racially transformed countless times by invasions, often very quickly.

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